Monday, October 12, 2009

It dawns on me that as of today, I've been making a sorry spectacle of myself on this blog for five goddamn years, for fuck's sake. That makes Bouphonia at least 80, in human years.

Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday that I was indulging myself in impotent complaint before a small but compassionate audience of rubberneckers.

Today...well, let's just say that things are very different. I have a desk now, for one thing.

I suppose I shouldn't make light of what I've accomplished here. In its crooked old age, and mine, Buffoonia has become a Wunderkammer that preserves the stillborn montrosities of my thought in neatly labeled specimen jars. This is interesting, like all disasters, but it's also useful: If I ever fall prey to self-satisfaction, I know exactly where to find the antidote.

Thanks to everyone who reads my ill-tempered gibberish; special thanks to those who risk their good names by commenting on and linking to it. And particular thanks to Echidne, who has talked me off the ledge so many times that she's in danger of having to take sole responsibility for this superannuated blog's wheedling demands on your patience.

I don't need presents, unless you've got an extra bottle of Cadenhead's Caol Ila 1995 lying around. But please do drop in and say hello, especially if you’re a lurker, so I may rest assured that we live like doves together, without gall.

Some weeks, due to the sturm and drang of life, I forget to tune in to see the lovely snails, or to see what you've extracted in the way of Hope - - and then I get this nagging feeling that something, something *important*, is missing.

Don't think I've ever commented before, except maybe to goggle verbally at a gorgeous nudibranch, but I appreciate what you do VERY much. Your writing is fine, and I'm pleasurably intrigued by the poetic strand that runs thru your commentary.

Congratulations, Phila - and thank you - for doing this for five years. Even a non-blogging (mostly) lurker like me realizes how much work this can be, especially for the kind of well researched posts you typically do. Here's hoping you hang in for at least another five years!

I don't mind things of consistently high quality that are 'old and in the way' when I'm traversing the web. Now if you were to take your act to my local supermarket queue I might have a different opinion.

Well done, and keep up the good work -- the nudibranches are counting on you. More than once the Friday Hope blast has served to remind me that it's still out there to be found, and that's no small thing.

Bon anniversaire, dear Phila!I've been reading your blog for at least three years (as evidenced there), probably four.I enjoy your amazing knack at unearthing beautiful tidbits of the Internet, tend to agree with you on politics (but then again I'm French, so what's to expect ?), but above all I really admire your ability to write in a faultless and harmonious style, even about the most infuriating things.This blog really is a delight to read, please keep it up !

Happy Birthday Phila!I recall that it was a pleasant afternoon's work to read your archives when I found this place. So I've been reading for a while now and I am looking forward to the next post. Always.

Phila, your presence on the internets is evidence that there are indeed sane people in this crazy world, or at least people who say sane things! Thanks for that. And the links to art and the nudibranchs are worth a visit in themselves.

It's hard to decide what's the best thing about this site: the awesome pictures, the fine poetry, the lucid prose, the nudibranches and all those other unique specimens you sift from the intertubes for Friday Hope. And Sunday Music, of course.

Plus that masterly hand while not-so-gently filleting the purveyors of anti- and pseudo-scientific dreck.

I feel bad about your pal...don't even remember what that was all about, except that I was probably in a bad mood. And maybe he didn't understand the pressure that trolls put on people over there...it's hard not to make snap judgments.

You're both right about the big words, though. Or at least, you're right roughly half the time. Sometimes I do it for the sake of humor, and sometimes they're necessary 'cause of the subject matter.

But the rest of the time, I'm just being lazy or clumsy or pompous or inhospitable. Between you and me, it's part of an ongoing project of self-sabotage.